Page 20 - SAMPLE Running Out of Time

could look more helpful I’d be a library.
She gives that one to me. “Yes, that’s right,” she
says. One-all. “What about the English for z—” “Spare parts,” I say.
Somebody behind me giggles in the way that only
thirteen-year-olds can. I hear the word “cheating” whispered, but I can’t be, can I? I just have that strange knowledge of what’s coming the moment before it arrives, like I always have. Two-one to me.
She smiles. Time to be careful.
“Last one,” she says. “Who knows the English word for ...” She hesitates, deliberately. We smile at each other. She opens her mouth again. “Zat—”
“Detention,” I say quickly. The girls at the back all laugh together. Davos is staring at me, wondering what’s going on. Three-one and game, I’m thinking.
“Very good, Vasily,” she says. “Detention it is. See me at the end of the lesson.”
How can I win if she can change the rules?
“I don’t know how you do it, Vas,” she says, but she is smiling as she picks up her notes and puts them into her case.
“My dad worked for three years in England, miss,” I say.
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